


Luckily

by Phritzie



Series: Drinking Buddies [4]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Allegorical Tales, Early Days, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Second Person, Some Plot, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-13 11:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phritzie/pseuds/Phritzie
Summary: "If they should touch the hem of your dress, I would rise like a lion."For a little while you had a daughter.





	Luckily

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably add on to this chunk of history later, but for today, have whatever it is right now.

You started her off on angiosperms, because beyond the rich history of their meaning and extensive uses in medicine, the simple attractiveness flowers bore seemed like a good appeal to the sensibilitiies of a young girl.  
  
You showed her marigold, rosehip, mugwort.  
  
Mainly indifferent, she ate one of the rosehips and swelled up terribly. You got her home in time to administer an antihistamine. When your fear led you to harshly scold her impulsivity, all she did was blink up at you. Burdened by guilt from the episode, you kept her on bedrest in the storeroom for a week.  
  
When she started to produce messes out of your salted fish for company it became apparent that you'd overreacted.  
  
Her replica of the fountain in town square wasn't too bad.

 

* * *

 

“Anything specific about it that you could describe?”

“Ugh, I don’t know! It was purple, round, had a bunch of puzzly bits, and it was inside a weird drawing on the floor that glowed.”

“Aubury?”

“I’m thinking.”

Waking was like surfacing from a cold soak.

The cot she lay on was stiff and bare of blankets, and the pillow under her head may as well have been full of mud for how comfortable it was.

Her mouth tasted of pure poison. Her eyelids wouldn’t open fully, and so she left them closed.

She tried to sit up and could hardly make it past the first twitch of her shoulders, so she listened instead.

“You ought to be thankful she’s alive.”

“Oh, and why is that again? _Because she happened to be in the neighborhood!_ There wouldn't have been another competent enough physician in any direction for days.”

“Please, I wish I knew more. I’m still getting the hang of all this.”

Felix experimentally flexed her left index finger. Tendons protested from wrist to forearm. Bending the elbow was a minimal improvement, and as the muscles in her bicep contracted she realized her arms were wrapped in bandages. The material pulled, limiting her movement.

 _I’m a mummy,_ she mused. _Hope I’ve still got legs._

“Wait,” Meg whispered, interrupting the bickering men. “I think she’s awake.”

_Let’s see how speaking goes._

“Observant as usual,” Felix rasped. She tried a smile and hoped it didn’t look as horrible as it felt.

A pair of fingers laid themselves over her arm, barely daring to touch. “We were so worried!” Meg spoke lowly, voice a rush of excitement and frustration as she tumbled word over word. “Major Rancour is okay, she’s on her way back to the field outpost in North Falador now, and I dragged you so far, oh, you are _heavy!_ ”

Felix grunted in acknowledgement. “Not that that’s bad, but when I tried to find our way we got lost, and you weren’t breathing properly, so I took you into that part of the swamp with the telepathic snails you told me about, and there was a man but he mustn’t have been mortal, because the way he spoke was—”

“Child,” a man begged, and from the familiar rattle in his chest she could have sworn… but what would her old hack be doing in Morytania? “Nothing you’re saying will be remembered if you keep on that way.”

“—Sorry,” the young adventurer murmured, and the hands skimming over her skin retracted sheepishly.

The shuffle of flat loafers over hardwood cut the sleep from her mind. Someone sat on the end of the cot, and Felix hissed when her knees shifted sorely. They made an apologetic sound; she heard soft sloshes as a tincture of some kind was lightly poured over her, absorbing into the bandages and chilling her skin.

Just as she was fighting down a shiver, the cold lifted and it was replaced by a blessed numbness.

“I'm not a philantropist,” the man said, “and this isn’t a hospice, so you’d best get well quick.”

_He is. He's here._

“Apothecary.” She forced her voice into life, tone cold. “What are you doing here?”

“This _is_ my shop,” he mumbled gruffly, and she was shocked to realize how thick with misery he sounded. “The more pertinent question would've been ‘what is this going to cost me,’ because the answer is anything you can do to wipe the memory of your near death from my mind.”

Despite the alleviating power of the medicine, her discomfort at the thought was unbearable. “Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired,” Felix murmured. “Will you finally do something about my crooked thumb?”

“Forget it,” Ingald said humorlessly. He cleared his throat and adopted a more businesslike tone. “I’ve already sent Dahlia to collect more of what I need to restore you.” Gently, he rose, and she heard hollow pottery being set on a surface. “Your head will be tender for a few days, and as soon as you can sit up, we’ll get some biscuits into you. Rest.” He shuffled into the next room.

A hum of agreement resonated from somewhere behind her head. _That must be your wizard._ “I’ll be back round after supper.” A door opened and closed, bells tinkling lightly with its swing.

In the absence of her pain Felix was getting drowsy, and she lightly pawed around the cot. “Meg,” she whispered, “are you still there?” Immediately a warm hand found hers on the bed.

“Yes, I’m here.” Her protégé must have been worried indeed if she was still suckered to her side.

“How long have we been here?” There was nothing to fill out her sense of time. If she focused beyond the smell of extracts and Ingald’s troubled muttering from what appeared to be the front of the storehouse, Felix could just about make out the sensation of a biting struggle inside of herself. It wasn’t hunger or heartbreak. Tugging. Pulling. Sadness. Loneliness. A sensation that implied loss without any suggestion as to what.

Were it not for the drugs she might have engaged in more critically studying her spirit, or its unwelcome guest.

Meg sounded thoughtful. “Oh, maybe a day and a half?”

Felix was about to fall asleep again. “What else happened?” She tried to pitch her voice low, quiet enough to be unheard from the other room. “On the way?”

A chair scraped against the floor as Meg wiggled closer to explain their chaotic journey.

 

* * *

 

For many years the girl loved to hear you read. About anything, but especially the ocean. Her favorite storybook was a loaner from the king's library and it belonged to the son of a historian.  
  
It told the tale of a man who'd been lost at sea. Mutinied by his crew because of a dispute over treasure. He drifted along for days in the hot sun, parched and lonely, until finally one morning he woke up on the beach of an island.  
  
"What a beautiful oasis," the sailor exclaimed, taking in the lush palms and fine, black sand. He explored the whole of the land, marking time by the frequency of his yawns and the position of the sun.

To the east, faintly, an archipelago capped with snowy mountains was veiled in mist.

To the west, open water.

To the north, a wide lagoon.

To the south, the beach he'd embraced life upon.   
  
At ten yawns and sundown, he made a bed out of broad leaves and ate a banana for dinner.  
  
But the man couldn't sleep. There were too many stars in the sky, he complained, and the sailor missed his ship and his crew, even though they'd abandoned him.  
  
The first few times, you had to stop at this point — because the girl would go very quiet — and explain that though the tale was gripping, absorbing, she wasn't alone. Her fingers would unfurl from the blanket and meet in her lap. And then she would nod, eyes determined, and you would continue.  
  
The island looked a little less charming in the morning to the man. He was curious though, and always willing to search out improvements in the most dire of situations. 

As luck would have it, the tired sailor found a cave.

She begged you to do voices.

You would not do voices.

"This will make a far better shelter than leaves," he decided.

Descending a vine into the damp and dark space, he crawled down a long tunnel, into a big cavern, and in the center of it there was a dragon.  
  
The dragon noticed him immediately. "Hello," it called, smoking lightly. "Who is there?"  
  
"My name—"

Not often one to indulge in fanciful things, you still came up, all on your own, with the idea that she could be the hero. 

You still regret it.

"Is Felix," the man called back.  
  
"How good to make your acquaintance, Felix," the dragon replied. "I am Dorsti. Do you like to play games?"  
  
Wary of monsters and knowing how dangerous it was to trust a stranger, even had one exchanged rote pleasantries with them, the seafarer held up a warning hand. "Yes," he said slowly, "I love games. But I must tell you, I do not like liars."  
  
Dorsti wuffled and it produced a little flame. It pierced the dark, illuminating the dragon's whole body for Felix to see. They were long but thin, perhaps even emaciated, and they held themselves as an elder with poor joints might. "I have never lied, and the game I would like to play with you is strictly honest," they promised.  
  
That sounded good to the sailor, so he crept closer. "What game is this?"  
  
"I have not eaten in fifty years," Dorsti explained sadly. "My flight is all gone, and I have no younglings. But if you bring me some food, perhaps I can tell you some stories. The better the food you bring me, the better the story I will share!"

Delighted by the idea of some entertainment, Felix agreed and struck out in search of food fit for a hungry dragon.  
  
First he walked to the lagoon of the island and ran around for a bit, collecting crabs.  
  
Here the girl would impatiently wiggle until you turned the book, because on page eighteen there was a smudgy illustration of the sailor on all fours scurrying after crustaceans, and she thought it hilarious.

Second he scoured the island palms for fruits of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Third, and finally, the sailor used a sharp stone to thresh from the ground sweet, dripping sugar canes.  
  
After twenty yawns, the sun began to set, and though he was very tried, Felix lugged his catches and foragings back to Dorsti's cavern.  
  
The dragon was very impressed!  
  
"What plentiful bounty you bring me," Dorsti commended. "A delight for the eyes!"

The sailor lay it at the dragon's great front claws and they dined together, sucking out puckery crabmeat, chewing on sugar cane, and passing around fruits.

When they'd finished their meal, Dorsti released a satisfied sigh. "So long without food have I gone that I'd nearly forgotten how sleepy one can become!"

The dragon patted the ground between them. "You have earned a good tale, but I can see you are weary too. Won't you rest here tonight?"  
  
Felix grew very suspicious again at this, still wary of monsters and knowing how dangerous it was to sleep over at the house of someone you'd just met. But his thoughts turned to his ship, and how nice it was to sleep amongst his snoring crew.  
  
"Well, why not," the sailor yawned, his twenty-eighth of the day, and nestled down on his side by the dragon.  
  
Dorsti let a large wing, scales soft with age, drape over Felix. Not long after, they fell asleep.  
  
The dragon woke him the next morning, voice low from disuse, and asked if he was ready to hear a story.  
  
Felix was so excited he nearly forgot his troubles. "Yes please," the sailor confirmed, crossing his legs in anticipation.  
  
"Once upon a time," Dorsti began, "a man was lost at sea. Mutinied by his own crew, he drifted for many days before washing ashore of my island."  
  
"Wait a minute," Felix said.  
  
"No no, I've only just begun," the dragon scolded him, and the sailor hushed, embarrassed.  
  
But the dragon proceeded to tell, in strangely precise detail, the days leading up to his discovery of the cave. Dorsti even seemed to know about his inability to sleep, and dislike of bananas.  
  
"But why?" Felix wondered, afraid of the dragon's amazing insight. "Why did you trick me?"  
  
"Trick you?" Dorsti sounded so sad. "I haven't ever deceived you!"

The sailor was cross though, storming around in dramatic circles throwing gestures this way and that. He wouldn't look at the dragon.

Their budding friendship seemed to be coming apart already.  
  
After a long silence, Dorsti made Felix a promise. "If you can prove to me that I lied, then I will tell you how to leave the island."  
  
_Leave,_ Felix thought, _I could leave?_  
  
He puzzled over their conversations for a long time.

Try as he might, there were no lies to remember.

"I don't think you did lie to me," the sailor admitted finally, "but I wish you would've told me that you knew all about my troubles. I was lonely, and then I met you, and I thought we could be friends. Now I don't know if I can trust you."  
  
Dorsti didn't understand. "What will you do then, if you can't say I lied. Will you still bring me food? I have more stories to tell you."

The sailor sighed and looked about the cavern. Big and wide, it was a home spacious enough for many dragons.  
  
Felix wondered why Dorsti had never had younglings, and what'd happened to their flight.

He wondered so long that he began to feel sad for the dragon.  
  
"Would you come with me?" Felix asked finally, extending a hand to the creature. "I have no ship, and no crew. You have no flight, and no little dragons to mind."

Dorsti looked very unsure.

"We could find lots of food for you that you've never even tried."  
  
At that the dragon became a bit perkier. "Well, I do love me some food," they wheedled, "but what if we get lost?"  
  
"I think we'll be okay," Felix said thoughtfully. He sized up the dragon and decided that their enormous wingspan would make a good flotation device. "If you let me ride on your back, then I can watch the sun and the stars."  
  
"Alright." Dorsti got up with some effort, bones cracking and creaking. "You've talked me into it."  
  
It took the whole day to get the dragon down to the southern beaches. They took a break at the shore, sweaty and thirsty from all their walking.  
  
As his sixteenth yawn ended, Felix stood suddenly. Out on the horizon a pale triangle was skirting the island.  
  
"That looks like a ship," he said excitedly.  
  
"It does look like a ship," Dorsti agreed, struggling to rise on their enormous talons. "Do you think it's your ship?"  
  
"Maybe," Felix answered, suddenly less confident.  
  
"Would you like to find out?"  
  
He looked at the dragon in confusion. "It is too far away, and probably faster than you on the water. There'd be no way we could—"  
  
The salted seafarer yelped in great alarm as the dragon grabbed him by his ratty sailors coat and lifted them into the air, wings beating powerfully.  
  
"I will take us to it," Dorsti said with certainty. "And you can find out if it's your ship!"  
  
Felix laughed and hooted, breathless with glee. "I didn't think you could fly!"  
  
"Oh," the dragon chuckled. "Must've been another cultural mix-up."  
  
They neared the distant ship in a few minutes, and low and behold, it was Felix's.

"Hello down there, mutineers!" the sailor called happily, clinging to one of Dorsti's claws. "We've come to avail ourselves of this ship!"  
  
His crew looked very afraid of the enormous creature, shouting and throwing bad words at him and the dragon.  
  
"Lousy bat!"

"Get out of 'ere, you greedy swindler!"  
  
"Overgrown reptile!"  
  
"You can't have our gold!"

Your daughter became most animated during this portion of the tale. She hated those sailors, thinking them cruel and unreasonable.

You allowed her to 'boo' and hiss for a while, but as she grew older that response became less frequent.

As did the readings, of course, but there was always time for a story.  
  
Felix turned his head until he could see Dorsti better. "Do you eat people?"  
  
The dragon frowned. "No, but I would gladly raid the kitchen after we take the crew hostage."  
  
They did that, and Felix instructed his new friend on how to hold humans a little more gently as the sailor's former crewmembers were flown one by one back to the island.  
  
"I love this cured ham," Dorsti raved over dinner. They sat on the deck under the moonlight, eating and talking long into the night.  
  
"I think I want you to be my first mate," Felix said, swallowing some hard tack. "Lets go on adventures together! Forever!"

 

* * *

 

When the date came due to return it, as you'd long run out of renewals and weren't much in the way of money to purchase it outright, she hid the book under some loose floorboards in the attic.  
  
You both forgot about it until she turned fourteen, and you started having to tear the house apart because she was hiding other things.  
  
"Absolutely not," you forbade, mouth a hard line. Your breathing sounded like a contest in the darkened room, the only noise outside of it the papery rebound of a forged recruitment letter. Her chest rose in enormous billows. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and you shook the page to emphasize your meaning. "This will not make you happy, Felix!"  
  
She said some things to you that you have tried for years to abandon the sting of hearing.

Things about how she didn't care if it made her happy, only that it made you angry. Insults and screams and one parting shot about how she wouldn't be coming back, about how Xenia understood and if you ever wanted to see her again, you'd have to go to 'her shit shack,' a phrase you'd used _once_ and immediately regretted.  
  
But you did find the book.  
  
Your hands brushed away the thin film of dust and it smeared black over the leather jacket.  
  
"Horace and Dorsti," you read aloud, tabulating mentally the fine you would've had to pay if the historian and his son hadn't minded when you told them it was lost.  
  
You wondered when she'd stopped reading it. If she'd chosen neglect, or lost interest.

You cleaned it off, and laid it on her bed.

And when she came back, to pack up and say goodbye for what you thought would be the last time, she didn't take it with her.


End file.
